Joanne D Pittard MS, RN

Ms. Joanne D Pittard MS, RN; Professor Emerita of Allied Health began here career in hemodialysis in 1971. Ms. Pittard is a consultant for Hemodialysis, Inc. and is the Associate Director of the Hemodialysis, Inc. training program for Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs) and Patient Care Technicians (PCTs).

Ms. Pittard taught at Glendale Community College in Glendale, California from 1975 to 2006. During her tenure, Ms. Pittard served as the hemodialysis program director, while teaching didactic and clinical nursing. This hemodialysis program was the only college-level hemodialysis course in California and held the distinction of being the oldest and most well regarded college-level registered nurse and patient care technician dialysis education program in the United States.  California legislation in 1984 used her hemodialysis nursing course syllabus as the model when standardizing the states training and education program requirements for Patient Care Technician (PCT) education and certification by the department of health services (DHS). 

About 1992, at specific request from the publisher and members of the ESRD community, her outlined manual, was made available to ESRD educators by mail. The response was and remains remarkable. That response and the letters asking for more detailed information about dialytic nursing care led to Joanne’s first monograph, "Principles of Dialysis," printed in March 1998. Our advertising consisted of just one direct mailing to RNs in November 1998. Orders for her monographs continue to this time as RNs and PCTs refer their friends to this new source of nursing information.